Some wader passage

20th July - I made an unusual weekend visit this morning.  The weather was quite muggy, being both humid and overcast.  Being a Sunday, I was a bit lazy and didn't arrive until about 9:30am, but on arrival one of the first birds I saw was a small wader in flight low over the lake.  Half expecting it to be one of several LRPs on site, I was pleased to get it in my bins and see a nice black belly.  It was an almost full summer Dunlin.  It made several passes at the spit before eventually landing.  A further scan of the spit found 2 Common Sands (there had been 4 the previous day) and 3 LRP, 2 adults and a juvenile.  Otherwise it was the usual fare, with a gathering of BHG on the near spit amongst which were 2 adult Common Gulls (these first appeared on the 14th); 6 juvenile Little Egrets from the two nests, plus a couple of adults and 3 male Pochard, continuing the sporadic appearance of post breeding ducks.

The 3 free flying juvs from the first nest

I walked to the meadow and spent a while watching a Tit/warbler flock moving along the railway bank.  This contained an adult and 2 juvenile Whitethroats, which made me wonder whether they had bred on site as the juvs looked recent and a male Whitethroat had started singing from the same spot along the bank about a week ago, suggesting post breeding.  I don't usually see many Whitethroats here.  Post breeding warblers are certainly moving though, as I had seen a Sedge Warbler in the southern reeds a couple of days before and they certainly don't breed on site.  In fact, I only had 2 or 3 go through in the Spring.  Garden Warbler, Blackcap and Chiffchaff were also seen in the flock.

Walking back up the western bank, I suddenly heard a Whimbrel call.  It sounded almost directly overhead, but I couldn't see it and my vantage point had many trees in the way.  Luckily, it continued to call and was obviously flying east, so I was eventually able to see it flying off into the distance.  Another wader I thought, though not a year tick, shame it didn't land.  This was at about 10:15am.  About 10 minutes later, I was still mid way along the west bank and scanning the spit to see the areas obscured by vegetation further up, when I heard the distinctive call of Wood Sandpiper.  Unfortunately, my position here was even more obscured by trees and the bird didn't call again, which frustratingly meant that I was not able to get on the bird.  I don't like claiming heard only birds, but Wood Sand has a distinctive and recognisable call, so I've put it on the list.  Hopefully another will actually land on the spit for better scrutiny.

With 3 waders new in (or over!) during the morning, I hung about for a further 30 minutes optimistically scanning the skies, but to no avail.  However, a nice leucistic BHG was another interesting bird to look at.  Not as fully white as some I've seen, but still quite washed out and looking very white in flight.